Posted on 09/02/2009 3:04:24 PM PDT by FredJake
The news is out that Jim Bob and Michelle Dugger are having another child, their 19th. Yes you read correctly, 19 children and their oldest son's wife is expecting their first child. Let us all pray that he follows in his parents footsteps, by having as many children and being as prosperous as his parents. I have heard many people ask the question, "Are they keeping up the household without being on the government dole?" The answer to that question would be that they have never received a dime of taxpayer's money. That is not how they operate. In fact the Duggers run a their own ,business which teaches people how to budget and save by buying only what you can afford among other businesses they own and operate. They built their own home themselves, and had it paid for before it was finished. Right about now many liberals are screaming that the world is already overpopulated and this couple are just adding to the problem. Overpopulated? Is it really?
When it comes to having children, most Christians understand that the Lord opens and closes a woman's womb, and it has been that way from the beginning of time. However, mankind has tried to control that which God said is in His control. The first commandment given to man was, “Be fruitful and multiply Gen 1:22”, and He re-iterated that command again after the Flood when he told Noah, “Be fruitful and multiply Gen 9:7”. Try as I may, I have yet to find any passages where God rescinded that command. What He does tell us, is that if we put our faith in Him, He will supply our needs. Something the Duggers have proved time and time again.
(Excerpt) Read more at norcalblogs.com ...
I found it real interesting the way he weaved the news about the Duggers expecting their 19th child and overpopulation being a farce real well.
BTTT
Perhaps they were the inspiration for Idiocracy.
Why do you say that?
If all people in America would hold the truths of the Bible sacred they would never want to restrict their family size. It is so sad how many Christians of all denominations have bought into the materialism promoted by humanism and stop having kids at the birth of their second child. Time to reverse tis trend.
They are not on the government dole.
They don't NEED a TV Reality Show like Jon - Kate + Eight to make ends meet. Mr. Dugger owns commercial Real Estate and has his own business. I find the show inspiring in contrast to Jon - Kate + Eight. All the Goselins are doing is making a mockery of “family” and entertaining folks with the disintegration of their family. This is a terrible way to exploit their kids.
Have you ever flown coast to coast across this country? (That is a rhetorical you) It is empty. Look down from that plane.
Lots and lots of space.
I am sure these people have a far higher IQ than the typical American. You will get Idiocracy if smarter people refuse to have more than one or two kids.
I don’t care if they have 50 kids.
They care and pay for their own children.
I wish my sons’ friends, all advanced degree’d in hard science, maths, biochem, and engineering would have lots of children instead of the none or one that they do.
My sons? Them, too.
Slow out of the gates.
Based on your comment, it sounds like you got a head start
I hope these people go for #20. Screw the whiners who cry when someone has a big family. That’s why Mexicans will own this country in 20 years.
The average family in America has two point five children that consists of one boy and one girl and the statistics do not differ in the families that frequent church. Even in the families that diligently attend church more than once a week reflect the national average of 2.5 children per household. For over 40 years Americans have been bombarded with the idea that humans will overpopulate the planet if we do not limit the number of children being born every year. We have been told time and time again that if we do not control the number of humans who live on this planet that,
Like you, he points out how Christians are as bad as the world. Imagine how we could control this country if all Christians kept having large families throughout the last 40 tears while the left has been aborting theirs?
I have noticed that. Miles and miles of nothing.
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"Be Fruitful and Multiply"the most tragic translation error?- / - For the individual and the family, there are a number of well-recognized reasons to seek to build up a family. Personal security in later years and the need for labour on the family land are not the least of them for subsistence farmers the world over. More questionable is the tendency of the major religions to encourage large families. The cynical would argue that this is an easy policy whereby the numbers of the faithful can be increased with little investment in missionary activity. But the faithful are reassured by holy scripture and notably, for the people of the Book, by the key phrase "be fruitful and multiply" (Genesis 1:28) . In this case everything hangs on the understanding of "multiply". This understanding was of little importance when population levels were far from being critical. This is no longer the case. There is therefore merit in exploring possible misinterpretations of what was originally intended. At present, with widespread education and teaching of arithmetic, there is little ambiguity to any understanding of "multiply". Is that so true of the period when the text was written? For a start it is important to put current understanding of arithmetic in perspective. It was not until the 14th century (??) that the current numerals became commonly used. The zero in the pattern of numbers was a relatively late arrival. Without the zero, division becomes a very challenging arithmetical operation. In Roman times, there were no operations for multiplying or dividing as they are now known. The only procedure necessitated adding or subtraction. Ironically it is Islam, as a historical torchbearer of mathematics, which through its architectural motifs, is most sensitive to complex tiling patterns over three-dimensional surfaces. There is a traditional antipathy of Christianity to mathematics, dating back to St Augustine: "The good Christian should beware of mathematicians, and all those who make empty prophecies. The danger already exists that the mathematicians have made a covenant with the devil to darken the spirit and to confine man in the bonds of Hell." [St. Augustine (354-430) , DeGenesi ad Litteram, Book II, xviii, 37]. But, ironically again, the much quoted Biblical injunction to "go forth and multiply" or "Be fruitful and multiply" (Genesis 1:28) -- on which policies with disastrous and far reaching implications for the planet are based -- is not subjected to dialogue between theologians and mathematicians. What then could be the sense of "being fruitful" to "multiply" when the phrase was first used? At the time this injunction was written, multiplication was not understood as a mathematical operation. Only addition and subtraction were possible. It might therefore be better translated as "increase", as featured in some Papal writings that also deal with the remainder of that same injunction, namely to "fill the earth and subdue it". From a mathematical perspective, "increase" may occur in many ways, some of which might be better associated in a theological perspective with "increase in comprehension", some "expansion" of the person, "growth in wisdom". It makes all the difference whether such increase is based on concentric circles radiating "out" from the person (to greater understanding of external reality), moving "within" the person (as progressively increasing understanding of internal reality), or rather as some form of serial replication. Similarly "subdue", and associated notions of "domination", would be well understood by mathematicians as achieving some form of cognitive control or comprehension of a complex phenomenon. Consider the case of an amoeba. It is common to perceive an amoeba as "dividing" in order to reproduce. In this sense it "multiplies" by dividing. Can a woman also be said to divide when giving birth to a child? Some would argue that this is how they feel about the process, whether physically or emotionally. The same ambiguity prevails when a community grows beyond a certain critical size and then divides -- through a process whereby there is an effective multiplication. This ambiguity is inherent to understanding of many growth processes. A growth in understanding is readily associated with the greater subdivision of a domain of knowledge. Progressive specialization is the continuing division of areas of expertise. This multiplies the number of things that are known. If "multiply" in the original phrase is to be understood to mean "growth", it may be important to recognize the necessary division which accompanies that growth. In the case of the individual, it is clearly ridiculous to interpret such growth as an unrestricted increase in size, which might then result in some form of giantism if successful. Rather there is the expectationthat after reaching a certain physical size, growth will take other forms, expressed by such phrases as a growth in skills or a growth in maturity. Again a form of division somehow counteracts the simplistic understanding of additive growth. In the case of a community, growth beyond a certain point evokes a need for some form of order. This order is usually closely associated with some form of functional division, and a division of responsibility. Even the largest of countries, or the United Nations system itself, evokes a need for organization into a comprehensible number of parts. Growth can be tolerated provided ways can be found to divide the whole into parts. Is it wise to assume that "being fruitful to multiply" implied no need for appropriate"division"? Would it not be more appropriate to explore the implications for sustainable communities of the ambiguity in multiply-divide? No multiplication without division, no division without multiplication? The tao of mathematics? Resistance to any such exploration comes in part from a sense in which "adding" (as the foundation of "multiplying") is seen as inherently more positive than "subtracting" (as the foundation of "dividing"). Taken further it is easy to understand how dividing can be seen as "evil". The process is obviously "divisive" and thus a favoured instrument of the devil. Religions can easily play on this. The questionable status of subtraction in the collective psyche is also highlighted by an analysis of GNP, understood to be a measure of the health of a country. Unfortunately GNP increases when forests are cut down, with every oil spill, and with every cancer patient or accident. The greens argue that if the planet is to be saved then economists must learn to subtract as well as to add. The challenge to understanding increases if the multiply-divide polarity is framed in terms of the integrate-differentiate polarity. The latter might almost be orthogonal to the former, with differentiation carrying some of the sense of both multiply and divide. Here it is clearer that without adequate differentiation, integration is of lesser import. How should the phrase "being fruitful and differentiate" then be understood? How far is it useful to go in differentiation before some degree of integration is necessary to maintain any sense of significance? Is it purely a coincidence that there is so much concern with integration in modern societies? But note the ambiguity around "discrimination", readily condemned as an attitude but yet who would want to associate with someone completely lacking in discrimination? What is the process of coherence that a simplistic approach to "multiply" ignores? Is the desperate search for a new social order a symptom of the failure to discover the secret of dividing? Whether at the individual, community, national or global level, sustainable identity may be associated with the ambiguity of the multiply-divide, integrate-differentiate polarities. The vain attempt to associate it with a polar understanding is a recipe for dissatisfaction and disaster. Perhaps stretching this exploration too far, there is a need to recognize that the desperate search for unity at every level of society cannot be achieved through multiplication and differentiation alone. Simplistically, unity is achieved by dividing by the number to which multiplication has brought us.
http://www.laetusinpraesens.org/musings/multiply.php
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Not.
“Lots and lots of space.”
Agreed, but, alas, much of that space is owned by gooberment agencies.
Unconstitutionally in government hands, I must add.
The Founders wisely limited what lands the government could own, and furthermore they defined why said lands could be owned by government.
If the state of Texas was broken into 1/4 acre lots like a subdivision, and there were three living in each house, the population of the earth would fit.
Just stick to your sterile and inert computer games and you won't have to worry about the future, idiotic or not.
"The disruptive powers of excessive national fecundity may have played a greater part in bursting the bonds of convention than either the power of ideas or the errors of autocracy." - John Maynard Keynes
I would rather see the Duggers have 19 kids, than see a welfare recipient have any. I have high confidence that the Duggers’ kids will grow up to be contributing members of society, while welfare kids are more likely to be tax consumers.
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